On Sunday, some current faculty members at Columbia University learned through a news article that all new students and faculty at the school will be mandated to go through an orientation on antisemitism. The plan was not announced in any direct communications from the university.

Rather, it was reported by Israeli newspaper Haaretz, in a story about the university’s task force on antisemitism.

Formed last November as political pressure mounted against criticism of Israel on campuses, the task force set out to examine specific notions of bigotry at the university, which has become a flashpoint of protests against Israel’s war on Gaza — often followed by violent police crackdowns.

Numerous participants in the antisemitism task force, including its three co-chairs — Columbia faculty members, many of whom are outspoken Israel supporters — openly discussed the not-yet published report with the newspaper before any such information was shared with the university’s community, or even their colleagues.

The antisemitism task force will release a report in the coming weeks detailing accounts from students who submitted written testimony or participated in “listening sessions,” according to Haaretz. All the anecdotes, equally, were shared without any attribution except that they were anonymously gathered by the task force — a body with pro-Israel leadership that has been controversial since its inception last November.

The article also revealed that a mandatory antisemitism orientation would be developed. The trainings will include expressions of anti-Zionism as examples of possible antisemitism, touching on a controversy that has enveloped the protests, crackdowns, and larger national conversation about Israel–Palestine.

Anecdotes that the task force shared with Haaretz include disturbing examples of antisemitism, like a professor reportedly telling a class “to avoid reading mainstream media, declaring that ‘it is owned by Jews.’”

Examples like these have been widely reported, but they are fewer and further between than the explicit and tacit conflation of anti-Zionism with antisemitism that pervade task force members’ comments — a conflation that has helped lead to dire consequences, including arrests, for thousands of students protesting Israel’s war.

A Dangerous Conflation

Up until this point, the chairs and participants in the antisemitism task force have demurred from offering a working definition of antisemitism. Now, with the new orientation planned, task force members now said that a definition of antisemitism will be put forward — and it will include anti-Zionism.

According to the Haaretz article, the task force’s antisemitism definition “is expected to determine that statements calling for the destruction and death of Israel and Zionism can be considered antisemitic, while criticism of the Israeli government cannot.” It mirrors, then, the contested and nationalist International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, IHRA, definition, which has been championed by Republicans and other conservative Zionists, including President Joe Biden.

“This definition........

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